Fecal microbiota of a dugong (Dugong dugong) in captivity at Toba Aquarium.

A captive female dugong at Toba Aquarium (Japan) was examined to describe the microbiota of its lower digestive tracts using the molecular-biological technique, a culture-independent method. The phylogenetic analysis of bacterial 16S rRNA genes was conducted for fecal samples, which were taken at 3 different periods. Based on phylogenetic analysis of these sequences, the representatives of six bacterial phyla could be identified: Actinobacteria (0.7%), Bacteroidetes (15%), Firmicutes (83.1%), Lentisphaerae (0.1%), Proteobacteria (0.1%), and Verrucomicrobia (1.0%), suggesting the existence of bacterial species newly found not only in the digestive tract but also in natural field.